The Song of Songs [of Solomon] (שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים Šîr haŠîrîm, ᾎσμα ᾎσμάτων Aisma Aismatōn, Cantĭcum Canticōrum) is a poetic courtship that moves from enchantment to consummation. Devoid of religiosity, it has traditionally been understood as metaphor for the relationship of the soul with the Divine – of God with Israel – of Christ with the Church – of Christ with the human soul – or humanistically, as a metaphor for psychological integrity....

The young man: He replied: “Where I go you know, our love will lead my queen’s feet, to where paradise overflows – in plenty we’ll be replete. For you my mistress are to men as mare to noble stallion, hair bejewels your neck as a mane, bridled by golden garland.” The young woman: And thus sparked, the lady replied: “From scent you sense my presence and at the couch where you recline it moulds your manly essence. Nesting all night my breasts between like bunchéd blooms of henna ’midst verdant vines kissed by sea’s sheen you’re more to me than all men are.” ...

n.a.

A meticulously edited edition of John Keats’ verse collecting all of his poems sans his two long verse plays. Keats was born in London, England, on October 31, 1795. He dedicated his short life to the creation of poetry characterized by its sensuous and vivid imagery, classical themes, technical mastery and sincere and authentic emotional tenor. He died tragically young in 1821 of tuberculosis, a disease that had plagued his life since he took a walking tour of the Lake District in 1818. Volume 5 in The Reader's Library Series. ISBN: 978-1-932023-47-3 https://www.facebook.com/williamralpheditions...

Ode to a Nightingale I My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains     My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains     One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,     But being too happy in thine happiness,—         That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,             In some melodious plot     Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,         Singest of summer in full-throated ease.   II O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been     Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green,     Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South,     Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,         With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,             And purple-stained mouth;     That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,         And with thee fade away into the forest dim:   III Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget     What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret     Here, where men sit and hear each ...

Contents Introduction Imitation of Spencer On Peace On Death Lines Written on 29 May, the Anniversary of Charles’ Restoration, on Hearing Bells Ringing Song: Stay, Ruby Breasted Warbler, Stay Fill for Me a Brimming Bowl As from the Darkening Gloom a Silver Dove To Lord Byron To Chatterton Written on the Day that Mr. Leigh Hunt Left Prison To Hope Ode to Apollo To Some Ladies On Receiving a Curious Shell, and a Copy of Verses, from the Same Ladies To Emma Woman! When I Behold Thee Flippant, Vain Sonnet to Solitude Epistle to George Felton Mathew To —— (Had I a Man's Fair Form...) To —— (Hadst Thou Liv'd in Days of Old...) I Am As Brisk Women, Wine, and Snuff Specimen of an Induction to a Poem Calidore To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent Oh! How I Love, on a Fair Summer's Eve To a Friend Who Sent Me Some Roses Happy Is England! I Could Be Content To My Brother George Epistle to My Brother George Epistle to Charles Cowden Clarke How Many Bards Gild the Lapses of Time! On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer Keen, Fitful Gusts Are Whisp’ring Here and There On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hou...

The selection of poems in this anthology may seem a bit unorthodox for Polish literature experts. I have no degree or expertise in any sort of literary research, which may well be the reason for my bizarre taste as presented here. I have tried my very best to include mainly those poems that are obligatory readings in Polish high schools, so that the English Reader can have the chance to get to know a portion of the choicest Polish poetry that an average Pole has willy-nilly come across in his life (one of the poems happens to be a well-known Christmas carol, even). However, Witkacy’s poem about his portrait company might be an exception to the rule. I have (un)fortunately excluded all the longer though important and well-known poems, since I have my deep and well-grounded doubts whether they would ever get read. Sigh. Again, Ode to Youth by Adam Mickiewicz is an exception and hopefully some will read it. I do realize that for the Modern Reader, it may come as a very odd practice to use the thou-thee-thy forms even in translations of classical poetry. I have made use of them, but only in the earlier poems i.e. since the beginnings...

To the Young by Adam Asnyk (1838–1897) The brightening flame of truth pursue, Seek to discover ways no human knows. With every secret now revealed to you, The soul of man expands within the new. And God still bigger grows! Although you may the flowers of myths remove, Although you may the fabulous dark disperse, And tear the mist of fancy from above; There’ll be no shortage of new things to love, Farther in the universe. Each epoch has its special goals in store, And soon forgets the dreams of older days. So, bear the torch of learning in the fore, And join the making of new eras’ lore. The House of the Future raise! But trample not the altars of the past! Although you shall much finer domes erect. The holy flames upon the stones still last, And human love lives there and guards them fast, And them you owe respect! Now with the world that vanishes from view, Dragging down the perfect rainbow of delight, Be gently reconciled in wisdom true. Your stars, oh, youthful conquerors, they, too, Will fade into the night!...

Translator’s note Mother of God Song XXV On Health God’s Plaything Man Fickle To a Corpse When God Is Born, No Power Prevails Vanity My Testament [In Sophie’s Diary] In Verona My Little Song (II) The Tempest To*** Upon the Alps in Splügen 1829 Uncertainty To My Cicerone Ode to Youth [Defend Me from Myself] To the Young Oh, Void Complaints No, Nothing Happened There A Sonnet (One Heart) The End of the 19th Century Hymn to Nirvana Welcome My Beloved Mountains A Portrait Company [I Want No Weeping at My Grave] About the translator...

How consciousness can become part of all of life,

nearly every atom in your body is exchanged every month only your bones take longer and are new almost yearly that’s why you eat so much every birthday you have an entirely different body - so, who are you ? - your essence existed before you your affects exist all around you who you are in essence and what you did and what you do are eternal...

Item Title 1 Introduction 2 Index Poem1 Already Damned Poem2 Can You Imagine Poem3 The Joy Of Poem4 Fear Is A Prison Poem5 Truth and Illusions. Poem6 Critical Eyes Poem7 Our Poetry Poem8 The Trouble With Silence Poem9 Empty Room Poem10 Freedom Poem11 What Am I Tomorrow Poem12 The Bottom Of Things Poem13 The Painful Way To Enlightenment Poem14 Ripples and Echoes Poem15 Phase 1 Poem16 God Is Eccentric Poem17 Friends Poem18 Comfort Poem19 Comfort Too Poem20 Today Poem21 The Light Poem22 Working Poem23 Welcome You Poem24 Coffee Poem25 Words Poem26 ...

Collections of original poetry in the mainstream European tradition.

Sweetly in the Silence For – March Wind Cascades Life The Being Part Discipline Barely Respite Out West One Mind Making Small-Scale Communion Covenant Nothing but Love Encounter Poetry, Charity White Mare Too Many People Age of Images Climbing in Spirit on Endless Hills Thoughts of Genji Entanglment Dream Little Words for Tao Ch’ien Sleeping Nowhere Wavering The Only One Viewing Burne-Jones’ Perseus Series No More Keep It Fluid Scale Scrap-Yard Diatribe In the Gallery Dimensionless A High Singing East-West, All Over Earth Murasaki Small Hours Mysterious Minds Of Light But Your Reality Star-Flower Self-Admonition Subterranean Rivers Out Over Strangest Flower Fecit Deep in the Long Grass Lullaby The Joy-Givers How Wholly How Little Time Is Plants and Stone Altitude Simple Fires Coitu True Notes Deer Trails White Bamboo I White Bamboo II Not For Sale Celebrate Considering Tao for Beginners Delta Only One The Task of Art Mountain Sighing Sign for the Human Race A Toast to Monsieur Mallarmé Solitude, My Beauty Dark Main ‘In the interstices of your spirit’ Intimacie...

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is widely considered to be the best poet of the Augustan age, and perhaps English verse’s best satirist ever. Pope was mostly self-taught having been denied a formal protestant education because of his family’s Roman Catholic beliefs; he also suffered from the effects of Pott’s disease his entire life, which left him deformed and of small stature never growing past the height of four feet six inches. Despite these challenges, Pope flourished in English society and was likely its first professional literary writer having garnered significant income from the sales of books to the public as opposed to traditional patronages, capitalizing mostly on his excellent translations of Homer and an edited edition of Shakespeare. A close friend of Jonathan Swift in their famous Scriblerus Club, he was quite famous in his time, and while his reputation declined in the 19th century, he is now considered the most canonical poet of his era and the true master of the heroic couplet (followed closely by his predecessor, John Dryden) and English poetic satire. This edition of his poems collects all of his major work, and most...

from "Essay on Criticism" “Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But of the two less dangerous is th’ offence To tire our patience than mislead our sense: Some few in that, but numbers err in this; Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself alone expose; Now one in verse makes many more in prose.     ’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In Poets as true Genius is but rare, True Taste as seldom is the Critic’s share; Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well; Authors are partial to their wit, ’tis true, But are not Critics to their judgment too? “    Yet if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind: Nature affords at least a glimm’ring light; The lines, tho’ touch’d but faintly, are drawn right: But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced, Is by ill col’ring but the more disgraced, So by false learning is good sens...

Introduction Ode on Solitude A Paraphrase (On Thomas à Kempis) To the Author of a Poem Entitled Successio The First Book of Statius’s Thebais Imitation of Chaucer Imitation of Spenser: The Alley Imitation of Waller: On a Lady Singing to Her Lute Imitation of Waller: On a Fan of the Author’s Design Imitation of Abraham Cowley: The Garden Imitation of Abraham Cowley: Weeping Imitation of Earl of Rochester: On Silence Imitation of Earl of Dorset: Artemisia Imitation of Earl of Dorset: Phryne Imitation of Dr. Swift: The Happy Life of a Country Parson Pastorals I. Spring; or, Damon II. Summer; or, Alexis III. Autumn; or, Hylas and Ægon IV. Winter; or, Daphne Windsor Forest Paraphrases from Chaucer January and May; or, The Merchant’s Tale The Wife of Bath The Temple of Fame Translations from Ovid Sappho to Phaon The Fable of Dryope Vertumnus and Pomona An Essay on Criticism Part I Part II Part III Ode for Music on St. Cecilia’s Day Argus The Balance of Europe The Translator On Mrs. Tofts, a Famous Opera-Singer Epistle to Mrs. Blount, with the Works of Voiture Adriani Morientis Ad Animam Epistle to M...

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is widely considered to be the greatest and most influential of all American poets. LEAVES OF GRASS, Whitman's sole book published at his own expense, represents almost the entirety of his poetical output. The first edition of LEAVES OF GRASS, which he would continue to revise over the course of his life expanding and rewriting it until the year of his death, appeared in 1855. This volume represents the final edition, commonly referred to as the “deathbed” edition, and comes with a prefatory note from Whitman asserting that this is the version he most considered full and complete. While it was a commercial and critical failure during Whitman’s lifetime, LEAVES OF GRASS has gone on to become one of the most canonical books of poetry ever written, influencing and inspiring countless artists in the last two centuries. Written in a groundbreaking prosodic style Whitman referred to as “free verse” LEAVES OF GRASS takes the individual and a young American democracy as its themes and illustrates them with a long-lined cadence Whitman coined his “barbaric yawp” along with all the details that constitute them, a few ...

O Captain! My Captain! O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;                     But O heart! heart! heart!                          O the bleeding drops of red,                               Where on the deck my Captain lies,                                    Fallen cold and dead. O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills, For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding, For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;                     Here Captain! dear father!                          This arm beneath your head!                               It is some dream that on the deck,                                    You’ve fallen cold and dead.   My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed...

Contents Introduction LEAVES OF GRASS INSCRIPTIONS One's-Self I Sing As I Ponder'd in Silence In Cabin'd Ships at Sea To Foriegn Lands To a Historian To Thee Old Cause Eidólons For Him I Sing When I Read the Book Beginning My Studies Beginners To the States On Journeys through the States To a Certain Cantatrice Me Imperturbe Savantism The Ship Starting I Hear America Singing What Place Is Besieged Still though the One I Sing Shut Not Your Doors Poets to Come To You Thou Reader STARTING FROM PAUMANOK SONG OF MYSELF CHILDREN OF ADAM To the Garden the World From Pent-Up Aching Rivers I Sing the Body Electric A Woman Waits for Me Spontaneous Me One Hour to Madness and Joy Out of the Rolling Ocean the Crowd Ages and Ages Returning at Intervals We Two, How Long We Were Fool'd O Hymen! O Hymenee! I Am He that Aches with Love Native Moments Once I Pass'd through a Populous City I Heard You Solemn-Sweet Pipes of the Organ Facing West from California's Shores As Adam Early in the Morning CALAMUS In Paths Untrodden Scented Herbage of My Breast Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand For Y...

A new Anthology of 1400 Quotations from the complete works arranged by theme.

Commands Compassion, Empathy, Mercy and Forgiveness Compliments and their Opposites Conscience and Doubt Constancy, Trust and Faith Courage and Cowardice Crime, Punishment, Justice and the Law Death and Fate Dishonour, Dishonesty, Inconstancy and Betrayal Doctors, Illness, Medicine England and Elsewhere Freedom and Imprisonment Friendship Good Advice and Bad Good Wishes and their Opposites Happiness and Sadness, Humour and Gravity Honour and Honesty Kings and Kingship Journeys and Travel Language and the Arts Learning, Literature, Wit, Wisdom and Foolishness London Love and Jealousy, Hatred and Envy Lust, Desire, Passion, Sexuality Madness and Sanity Magic, Astrology, Superstition, and the Supernatural Men Music, Song and Dance Myths and Fables Nature , Trees, Flowers, Creatures Ownership, Money and Possession Prayers, Pleas, Curses, Threats and Promises Pride and Humility Rank and Status, Power, Order, Custom and Authority Service and Slavery Sleep, Waking, Dreams, Visions and Imagination Sons and Daughters Theatre, Drama and the Stage Time Truths, Truisms, Proverbs and Philosophy War and Co...

The whole paradoxist distich should be as a geometric unitary parabola, hyperbola, ellipse at the borders between art, philosophy, rebus, and mathematics – which exist in complementariness. The School of Paradoxist Literature, which evolved around 1980s, continues through these bi-verses closed in a new lyric exact formula, but with an opening to essence. For this kind of procedural poems one can elaborate mathematical algorithms and implement them in a computer: but, it is preferable a machine with … soul!...

I M M O D E S T With the shame Shamelessness U N D E C I D E D Fighting Himself J A Z Z ( I ) Melodious Anarchy J A Z Z ( I I ) Anarchic Melody...

Fore/word and Back/word _________ 3 The making of the distich : _____ 3 Characteristics: ______________ 3 Historical considerations: _____ 5 Types of Paradoxist distiches ___ 8 1. Clichés paraphrased: ___ 8 2. Parodies: _____________ 8 3. Reversed formulae: ____ 8 4. Double negation _______ 8 5. Double affirmation, ____ 8 6. Turn around on false tracks: _________________ 8 7. Hyperboles (exaggerated): __________________ 8 8. With nuance changeable from the title: ________ 8 9. Epigrammatic: ________ 8 10. Pseudo-paradoxes: ___ 8 11. Tautologies: ________ 9 12. Redundant: _________ 9 13. Based on pleonasms: _ 9 14. or on anti-pleonasms: 9 15. Substitution of the attribute in collocations ___ 9 16. Substitution of the complement in collocations 9 17. Permutation of various parts of the whole: ___ 9 18. The negation of the clichés ______________ 10 19. Antonymization (substantively, adjectively, etc.) ________________ 10 20. Fable against the grain: _________________ 10 21. Change in grammatical category (preserving substitutions’ homonymy): ________________ 10 22. Epistolary or colloquia style: _________...